Alone
by White Moonlight
Summary: Wish or not, in the end she always knew that she would end up alone.


Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha. Plain and oh so simple.

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Alone

_From childhood's hour I have not been_

The trees shaded her from view. They always did.

"…look, Inuyasha. I have this really big test in a few days, and I _need _to pass it! Can you please…?" Her eyes pleaded with him softly, so softly, that he nearly gave in.

Kikyou blinked, and sunk into herself. Her soul, or the piece that she possessed was… weary.

_As others were – I have not seen_

That girl… her reincarnation… her _replacement_ was clinging to Inuyasha, persuading him, holding him.

"She has taken my place."

Kikyou rose from the dirt ground and shrugged slightly, her eyes never leaving the scene. It had never really _been _her place from the start… she never had the chance to ensure that.

But Kagome would.

And as many times as the undead priestess denied without denying, considered without regarding, and knew without feeling, the fact burned into her usually cold corpse with a tinge of finality.

She did not love Inuyasha.

But she would be alone.

_As others saw – I could not bring_

"Fine, wench!" Inuyasha yelled, his hands curling into fists.

'_Feigned anger. He can never truly hate her.'_

"But when you're-" Inuyasha jerked suddenly, his nose twitching in the air.

_My passions from a common spring._

Kikyou surveyed them all coldly, from a distance as _she always was_, and turned, journeying into the forest once more. Calm steps, even breaths, the day would unfold as it always did. He would come, as he always did.

He smelled her scent in the air.

It was that predictability that made her _hate _his guts.

_From the same source I have not taken_

He would escort her reincarnation to the well, although Kikyou failed to see exactly what was so interesting about it.

She didn't care.

He would say goodbye gruffly, and Kagome, intuitive and _stupid _as she was, would know, but not stop him.

She _didn't _care.

_My sorrow; I could not awaken_

Kikyou paused and surveyed her surroundings. The trees loomed overhead, lazily but forebodingly, waiting, perhaps, for something extraordinary to happen. Their leaves whispered and rustled gently, ever shifting yet _always _blocking her from the sun's view.

Warmth was not for her.

_My heart to joy at the same tone;_

Kikyou's dark eyes narrowed as she shifted silently. The days were the same, the hours were the same. The sun shone as always, and denied her its rays, that _girl _laughed, as always, and denied Kikyou her company. Clawed feet pounded soft dirt, _as always_, on its desperate path to her.

She wanted- but did not want- _he repulsed her_.

"K-Kikyou."

Inuyasha breathed, truly breathed, and his heart ricocheted off his ribs.

_And all I loved, I loved alone._

Her brown eyes searched him slowly, as if memorizing every attribute, his stance and posture, his gait and expressions.

It was… the same.

He never changed.

Finally her eyes met his, and the seemingly emotionless miko struggled to keep a scowl from forming on her features.

Those amber eyes were like the sun, and the warmth _never reached her_.

_Then – in my childhood – in the dawn_

"Inuyasha… you came," she said, and she knew her voice was dead, devoid of all feelings, as she should be. But as she gazed at the fidgeting hanyou before her, she would not change the emotions that should not have been there.

She hated him from her very soul.

She _knew_ he would come.

_Of a most stormy life – was drawn_

"Kikyou," Inuyasha said softly, much too gently, a great change from his gruff tone with Kagome. He blinked and shook his head slightly, at a loss for words. She came… to see him? To stay with him?

What changed?

Her heart clenched horribly.

"Nothing has changed," she replied lowly. She knew his thoughts, she _always _did. "I have come for you; my time here is at an end."

The half-demon's face fell from its hopeful peak.

_From every depth of good and ill_

"Kikyou, I…" Inuyasha trailed off, and absently sniffed the air.

He smelled fear. His own.

Afraid to finish his sentence, he let it hang. Afraid of looking into those dark, bottomless eyes, he stared down at his own feet. Afraid _to let her go_, he settled with getting her to stay as long as possible.

"I don't have the time."

It was a lie, but it worked. Inuyasha snapped his gaze from the ground to her, and she inwardly cringed at desperation that deformed his face.

_The mystery that binds me still:_

Then Kikyou sighed.

Inuyasha took a small hesitant step, then another until he stood within touching distance. With a shaking hand, he reached out and touched her shoulder, then held onto it and squeezed gently.

She did not deny him this.

A claw brushed absently against her clay cheek and she frowned slightly, but did not move.

She would not deny him this.

_From the torrent, or the fountain,_

Golden eyes blinked slowly, and then loomed in closer until his nose brushed hers. His breath ghosted her lips, and she closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable.

She could not deny him this, if it persuaded him to stay.

But as he closed the distance, she succumbed to the nothingness of the moment.

_From the red cliff of the mountain,_

Her lips didn't care one way or the other, but her heart burned with _loathing_. He was damned to be predictable, damned to not change. She was damned to roam the earth, living, but utterly dead until he _came _with her.

She would not leave alone.

She had changed, and he was so… _damned blind _to not see the lack-of-Kikyou within Kikyou. She was so _damned _to be the shell of the woman he once loved, and thrice damned to be the object of affections that she would never care for nor reciprocate again.

She damned him for kissing her.

_From the sun that 'round me rolled_

Inuyasha pulled back slightly as smiled-actually _smiled_- and slowly, but gently, stroked her hair with his claw. For one strange, strange moment, Kikyou wished that her hair had a knot or tangle in it, just so his affectionate actions would cause her the pain that she imagined that it _should _have.

Someone needed to feel pain.

"Kikyou, please," Kikyou reveled with narrowed eyes that it was _the second time that she had heard pleading that day_. "Stay with me." His voice was warm and full of an entirely misplaced emotion.

He just seemed so… content. With her.

More hatred.

_In its autumn tint of gold – _

Amber eyes swept across her face yet again, and Kikyou took a purposeful step backwards, to Inuyasha's dismay. To be under the radar of such a lingering gaze was an annoyance to her, coupled with the fact that he could merely see her partially. The hanyou would never think to look _through _her, where she really resided.

He would never touch her anger.

But the softness in her own voice shocked her.

"I cannot stay. And neither can you." She leveled him with a hard look.

He began to fidget. Again.

_From the lightening in the sky_

Inuyasha tried to inject some confidence in his voice…

"Look, the Shikon jewel ain't completed yet, and they can't finish without me."

… and failed miserably.

"Are they so helpless?"

"Well, no but-"

Her eyes flashed.

_And it passed me flying by - _

"Well then," she whispered, her fingers brushing against his sleeve, but her eyes remained cold. "You are not needed there."

"Naraku..."

"…Is not invincible," Kikyou continued smoothly. "But you have a promise to fulfill _to me_."

The silence was just as bad as the nothingness of their kiss. He broke it first.

And Kikyou blinked. She was right, as always, but it was still the same. Inuyasha looked away rather quickly for someone who _loved her_, and took several nervous steps backward.

The space between them was almost as great as it had originally been.

_From the thunder and the storm,_

"I… I-I'm sorry… I can't…Kagome…" His ears flattened against his skull, and for a moment the hanyou looked so crushed, so helpless, so _vulnerable_… that Kikyou imagined that she could take him by force.

But no matter.

"So you'll stay with her?" Inuyasha did not miss the sharp edge in her voice. "My reincarnation… you choose her over the promise you have made?"

His eyes widened.

_And the cloud that took the form_

"No! I-"

Her eyes grew so dark that he flinched. And yet, she was still.

"Yes. This is your choice."

Kikyou could hear the broken remains of his heart. Or perhaps that was the sound of her flesh crumbling into the dust that it was.

She did not have the time.

_(When the rest of Heaven was blue)_

"Go back to her," she said gravely. Her feet began to move despite herself, and she knew that she had lost.

"…!"

"_Go_, unless you are prepared to leave with me."

And so she walked away. She knew that she could recount word for word the pathetic battle that resounded in Inuyasha's head as he fought with himself over whom he should choose. She knew that she had already lost when she caught, from the corner of her dying eyes, the pained look he shot her before bounding away. She knew, from his _damned predictability_, that he would soon, once again, search for her.

But he knew nothing.

_Of a demon in my view._

He could not fathom that the woman he loved died, and would not rise with her corpse. He would not know or understand the utter loathing she felt towards him in their brief encounters, the _hatred_ she felt for his lost feelings. He could never understand that she much preferred how he treated her reincarnation to how he treated her.

And he would not, no, _never_, comprehend that his last chance was her last wish.

Calm steps, even breaths, the day would end slightly different this time.

Her hope was gone.

She did not love Inuyasha.

But she would be alone.

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Author's Note:

Ah, so I know that a lot of people don't like Kikyou for the hold she has over Inuyasha and stuff, but I hope that you who read this fic can see that she usually loses in the end…

But! Besides that! What do you think? WAS THIS FIC WORTH THE TIME YOU TOOK TO READ IT?

**Further Disclaimer: I do not own the poem, ****Alone**** by Edgar Allen Poe, that was used in this fic.**

Eh… even though it's not night yet… bon nuit.

Please review and tell me what you think!


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